Interactive television (ITV) combines conventional television with additional content (interactive content) to present a viewer with an enhanced version of a television program or commercial. As used herein, the term interactive content refers to any additional information that is used to supplement a TV signal and create an enhanced program.
Typically, the interactive content is in some way related to the television program being viewed, such as biographical information about one of the actors in the program, additional information about a topic covered in the program, and the like. If the television program is a game show, the interactive content often allows the viewer to play along with the game. For example, a viewer may answer the same questions as the contestants on the game show. The interactive content may also be associated with television commercials that a user may interact with to retrieve additional information on products and/or to purchase the products.
In order to allow a viewer to experience an enhanced television program, a television program is encoded with ITV data and broadcast to the viewers. The ITV data may take many forms, such as, for example, HTML, XML, JAVA, or JAVA Script commands. If the receiving viewer's television system is equipped with an ITV receiver, the ITV receiver may decode the embedded ITV data for accessing the associated interactive content or performing an action indicated by the command.
Today, one form of interactive television delivery depends on World Wide Web (Web) technology for delivering and viewing the enhanced content. Specific web sites, addressed with URLs, are created and maintained as ITV sites. The content in these sites may be viewed with an ITV receiver in the same way a computer browses a web site. The ITV receiver typically includes a web browser, and can display downloaded ITV content along with TV video on a conventional television set. The ITV receiver typically obtains a majority, if not all, of the ITV web content via one of the ITV web sites. The sites that are accessed and how content is displayed is determined by the ITV data contained in the video portion of the television program. One method for encoding ITV links and triggers is specified in “EIA-746-A: Transport of Internet Uniform Resource Locator Information Using Text-2 (T-2) Service,” September 1998, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference. Another form of interactive television delivery relies on application server technology in combination with head-end integration with cable and satellite networks.
In order to encourage users to engage and continue to stay engaged with an ITV application, it is desirable to have a system and method that provides dynamic ITV content based on one's activities with the ITV application as well as activities of other viewers. Such a system and method should also provide customized ITV content based on the user's profile information in order to keep the viewer's interest.